Susan Sarandon, the Despicable BernieBro

The kerfuffle last week over Susan Sarandon’s allegedly unconscionable comments about the presidential campaign had all the makings of yet another in a long line of ephemeral “daily outrage”-type stories — of no real lasting consequence, but useful to media outlets in perpetual search of fodder for “quick takes” and the concomitant easy clicks.

The well-to-do left-wing actor and Bernie Sanders supporter had apparently declared that she would do the unthinkable: if the choice in November came down to Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump, she would vote for the latter, despite the latter representing a potentially fascist menace. And her apparent rationale was self-evidently loony; a Trump presidency could somehow bring on “the revolution,” she prophesied.

At least this was the widely-disseminated, haphazardly-summarized version of her comments, which instantly became the premise from which waves of scandalized commentary flowed on social media and national news websites. The only problem was that, as revealed by a close look at Sarandon’s actual words, she never said she’d vote for Trump, or that she’d favor Trump over Hillary, or that she found a Trump victory preferable to a Hillary victory, or anything else remotely construable as welcoming of Trump. Instead, what Sarandon did was sketch out a view that she correctly attributed to some segment of Sanders supporters: that the chaos presumably wrought by a Trump presidency may have the felicitous side-effect of hastening the collapse of societal institutions, which would in turn create conditions conducive to overthrowing capitalism.

HAYES: How about you personally?

SARANDON: I don’t know. I’m going to see what happens.

HAYES: Really?

SARANDON: Really.

HAYES: I cannot believe as you’re watching the, if Donald Trump…

SARANDON: Some people feel Donald Trump will bring the revolution immediately if he gets in then things will really, you know explode.

Anyone cursorily familiar with the many iterations of socialist theory would be aware that a certain cohort have long subscribed to some variation of this rather inchoate prognostication, crudely known as “accelerationism.” It’s a little batty, sure. But Sarandon herself didn’t endorse the position. She simply ascribed it — accurately — to an unknown portion of Sanders’s activist base. That she would do this makes perfect sense, considering the topic at hand during her MSNBC appearance was how fissures among Democratic presidential primary voters might play out in the general election. Being a socialist, Sanders has activated a segment of fellow socialist activists who otherwise tend to shun electoral politics, much less the Democratic Party. If presented with the choice between guaranteed status quo continuer (Hillary) and possible revolution-bringer (Trump) it’s perfectly reasonable to infer that an indeterminate percentage of these folks will opt for Trump.

A basic requirement for conducting reasoned inquiry is the capacity to describe the beliefs of others without necessarily affirming those beliefs. That’s exactly what Sarandon did, to much unwarranted consternation.

But last week’s drummed up mini-controversy ultimately wasn’t notable for what Sarandon did or did not say. She’s an actor who sometimes goes on TV to riff about politics — big whoop. Rather, more notable was the disproportionately uproarious reaction her comments engendered, and what this indicates about how party elites are attempting to set the terms of the remainder of the Democratic primary process.

Sarandon’s comment caught fire and achieved “virality” largely because prominent Hillary backers with major media platforms are primed to identify and assign outsized importance to any story which might further their preferred narrative of “irresponsible Bernie backers endangering the presumptive nominee and increasing the odds of fascist takeover.” Promulgating these types of stories associates continued vigorous campaigning by Sanders with naive, pie-in-the-sky leftist foolhardiness. Indeed, influential Hillary supporters immediately demanded that Bernie be called on to answer for Sarandon’s supposed nihilism, and because avowed socialists generally lack an equivalent platform to respond in kind, it amounted to a momentary narrative “victory” for the Hillary stalwarts.

The tactic is in keeping with the overarching, tedious theme of “BernieBros” which has suffused the Democratic race for months, at least among elite media. Though by virtue of her gender Sarandon is not a Bro in the strictest sense, her comments nevertheless provided ample opportunity to advance the broader thesis: that Bernie supporters are uniquely cruel and/or crazy, and somehow this reflects negatively on the candidate himself. The Sarandon-bashing is a natural extension of the BernieBro attack line; suddenly a stray comment by an actor becomes a cudgel to discipline the entirety of Bernie’s support base.

The utility for the legions of Hillary defenders is that these constant proxy discussions — some surrogate said this, some guy on the internet said that — displace the crux of the debate onto ancillary social phenomena, which means less time spent dwelling on their candidate’s incredible flaws. (Among other liabilities, when has the probable nominee of a major party ever been the subject of a federal criminal probe?).

Now that Sanders has won the Wisconsin primary and is campaigning with a sharper edge, look for more fishing expeditions to commence in due course, as Hillary fans again eagerly pounce on some surrogate’s stray musings rather than grapple with what should be the real focus: that despite historic levels of support from the institutional Democratic Party apparatus, Hillary keeps losing — big-league — to a formerly-obscure septuagenarian socialist.